Influencer Marketing
Expand your reach and engage with your target audience using this trending technique that blends celebrity endorsements with social media marketing.
Leading High Performing Remote Teams
How can leaders ensure that performance remains high in remote or hybrid-work environments?
Design Thinking
Learn the 5 phases of this problem-solving methodology and switch from technology-centered to user-centered thinking.
Gantt Chart
Invented in the early 20th century, the Gantt Chart is one of the building blocks of modern project management. In this online course, you'll learn how this tool can be used effectively to monitor progress and achieve your team's goals.
Navigating Change Successfully
The working landscape is continually shifting and being disrupted, so how to employees maintain a sense of stability? Listen to CEO and president of Carl ZEISS Japan Stefan Sacre share his expertise on dealing with change in organizations and entire industries.
Halo Effect
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Anchoring and Framing
Want to increase your confidence during negotiations? Master the principles of anchoring and framing to take your negotiation skills to the next level.
ZOPA and BATNA
Understanding ZOPA and BATNA will help you become a better negotiator, create more value, and feel more confident at the table.
Content Marketing
In this course, you’ll learn how compelling blogs, videos, podcasts, and other media can reach customers and drive sales. You’ll also learn steps for creating an effective content marketing plan, and some important ways to measure its impact and success.
Content marketing is a essential digital marketing strategy for companies looking to provide relevant and useful information to support your community and attract new customers.
Get started on your content marketing journey today.
Sustainable Innovation in Times of Disruption: Choices for a Better Society
There are opportunities for progress all around us. The key is to innovate on these opportunities sustainably.
To help identify most effective path forward, you'll need to gain a global perspective to these challenges in an open discussion. How can Japan and the world take action to create a more sustainable, innovative world? Where do you fit in?
It's time to find out.
Social Media & Digital Communications: Impact on Global Public Opinion
Social and digital media have dominated the communications industry for decades. But it's no secret that social media has the power to sway public opinion, and the way in which many companies use these platforms could be seen as manipulative.
What do companies need to be aware of when utilizing social and digital media? How can these mediums be used to better communicate strategically with the world?
Discover what top media and communications experts have to say.
Blockchain
Blockchain is one of the most captivating technologies out there. Learn what it is and how to make use of its opportunities in this short online course.
Mehrabian’s Rule
The 7-38-55 Rule, developed by Albert Mehrabian, suggests that effective communication relies less on the words we choose than on our tone of our voice, appearance, and body language. Learn how to put this theory to use for better communication in business.
Pareto Principle
Your time and resources are limited. Efficiency means learning to prioritize. The Pareto principle (also called the 80-20 rule) can help you identify the best way to use your time for maximum results.
Country Analysis Framework
Overseas expansion requires careful planning. The Country Analysis Framework can help you look beyond an industry-level analysis and reframe your view based on performance, strategy, and context. Try this short course to learn how it works.
SECI Model
The SECI model illustrates how knowledge is created and shared. Learn how to put it to use for best practices, and how the Japanese concept of “ba” fits in to broaden your perspective.
Johari Window Model
The Johari Window Model is a self-awareness framework that helps you better understand . . . you. Learn how its four quadrants can help you identify gaps between how you see yourself, and how others see you.
Sunk Costs
Wondering if you should continue an investment or look for something new? Sunk costs can have a powerful psychological impact on decision-making. Learn how to recognize them to ensure rational decisions.
CAGE Distance Framework
Want to expand overseas? The CAGE distance framework can help ensure you're constructing a solid global strategy in four areas: cultural, administrative, economic, and geographic. Learn how to leverage useful differences between countries, identify potential obstacles, and achieve global business success.
Groupthink
Groupthink refers to group pressure and the perception of consensus which together lead to ill-formed decisions—or even unnecessary risks. Learn to identify the warning signs of groupthink and apply countermeasures in this online course.
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning
Solving problems with the best results means using two types of thinking: deductive and inductive reasoning. In this online course, learn to form a broad premise, make observations, and form conclusions from different perspectives.
Critical Thinking: Hypothesis-Driven Thinking
Anyone can come up with a good idea. The real challenge is putting that idea into action. In this online course, explore how to form compelling, testable hypotheses and bring ideas to life in your own organization.
Critical Thinking: Structured Reasoning
Even a few simple techniques for logical decision making and persuasion can vastly improve your skills as a leader. Explore how critical thinking can help you evaluate complex business problems, reduce bias, and devise effective solutions.
Critical Thinking: Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is a central business skill, and yet it's the one many people struggle with most. This course will show you how to apply critical thinking techniques to common business examples, avoid misunderstandings, and get at the root of any problem.
How to Dream
Join globally renowned author and Columbia Business School professor Dr. Sheena Iyengar as she explains how to approach your dreams with a new perspective. Learn to reflect on what you long to accomplish and what stands in your way.
Logical Thinking
Logical thinking is at the heart of confident, persuasive decisions. This course will equip you with a five-point approach to more becoming a more logical thinker. Learn to classify ideas and distinguish fact from opinion.
Investing & Diversity: The Changing Faces of Venture Capitalists
Is the venture capital industry embracing diversity in investors? Watch global venture capitalists from around the world discuss the state of things and what needs to be done for a more inclusive future.
Servant Leadership
There's more to leadership than driving a team to profit. In fact, there's a word for looking beyond self-interest to prioritize individual growth: servant leadership. Try this course for a quick breakdown of what that is, how it works, and how it can lead to organizational success.
Organizational Behavior and Leadership
Ever wonder what makes a great leader? Whether your role requires leadership or not, understanding organizational behavior is useful for your career. This course from GLOBIS Unlimited can set you on your way.
Leadership vs. Management
Leadership and management are different skills, but today’s leaders must have both. Try out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to understand the difference, as well as when and why each skill is necessary for motivation, communication, and value.
Strategy: Creating Value Inside Your Company
Have you ever wondered why certain companies are more successful than others? The answer is strategy: internal processes that control costs, allocate resources, and create value. This course from GLOBIS Unlimited can give you the tools you need for that strategic edge.
Strategy: Understanding the External Environment
To plan strategy on any level, you need to understand your company's external environment. In fact, your level of understanding can impact hiring, budgeting, marketing, or nearly any other part of the business world. Want to learn how to do all that? This course from GLOBIS Unlimited is the perfect first step!
Using Japanese Values to Thrive in Global Business
Japanese companies have unique cultural, communication, and operational challenges. But they also have values that have led to remarkable longevity. Check out this seminar to hear how these values help earn trust from overseas head offices and develop employees.
Turnaround Leadership: The Differences Between Japan and the West
What's the best way for leaders to communicate a shift in corporate strategy? How do you even know when it's time for such a change? This course explains how Japan might have one answer, Western companies another.
Conflict Management
Conflicts in the workplace are inevitable. But they can lead to positive outcomes if they’re managed well. Check out this online course for a two-step process that can help you manage conflict successfully.
Evernote Founder: How Tech Startups Can Break through in Japan
Can startup models from Hollywood and Silicon Valley succeed anywhere? Phil Libin, cofounder and CEO of startup incubator All Turtles, explains how AI can solve everyday problems to bring products to market.
Women Empowerment: Lessons from Cartier
How can women overcome gender inequality and reach their leadership goals? Cartier Japan CEO June Miyachi shares her secret in this special course from GLOBIS Unlimited.
Marketing: Reaching Your Target
Every company works hard to get its products into the hands of customers. Are you doing everything you can to compete? In this course, you’ll find a winning formula to turn a product idea into real sales. Follow along through the fundamentals of the marketing mix and see how companies successfully bring products to market.
Marketing Mix
Seeing good products into the hands of customers is no easy task. The marketing mix can help. It's a collection of strategies and tactics companies utilize to get customers to purchase their products or services, and is an essential part of the overall marketing process.
The Principles of Negotiation
With the proper skills and attitude, anyone can become a successful negotiator. But first, you'll need to learn the basics to prepare for, assess, and respond to offers for the best results. GLOBIS Unlimited can help.
Negotiation: Creating Value
Want to create more shared value between yourself and your negotiation opponent? Discover how cognitive bias affects the judgment of others. Try this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to master the value of negotiation.
Finding Your Life Purpose with Ikigai
Ikigai can guide you in your quest for self-discovery. Listen to Japanese brain scientist Ken Mogi explain why and how.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Want to leverage Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a leader? Try this short course to see how the theory can be applied in practical work scenarios.
Confirmation Bias
We all subconsciously collect information that reinforces our preconceptions. It's natural . . . but it does lead to a kind of flawed decision-making called confirmation bias. To become more objective and impartial, check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited!
An Investor's Lesson to Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs have the power to transform societies for the better. But how do you attract investors to start or grow a business? Or to sell one? Check out this seminar for the answers to these and more, straight from a master venture capitalist!
Managerial Accounting
Managerial accounting is a powerful way to measure progress, identify problems, and meet your goals. Check out this course to learn how data-backed decisions can help you run your business.
Finance Basics: 1
For a healthy mix of quantitative planning, evaluation, and management, you need solid decision-making. And finance is the secret sauce! Get the essentials of finance in this two-part course from GLOBIS Unlimited.
Basic Accounting: Financial Analysis
Want to compare your performance vs. a competitor? Or evaluate a potential vendor? Then you'll need to conduct a financial analysis. This course will teach you how to use three financial statements and evaluate financial performance in terms of profitability, efficiency, soundness, growth, and overall strength.
Career Anchors
What drives you to be good at your job?
Career anchors are based on your values, desires, motivations, and abilities. They are the immovable parts of your professional self-image that guide you throughout your career journey.
Try this short GLOBIS Unlimited course to identify which of the eight career anchors is yours!
Digital Marketing Psychology to Transform Your Business
How does digital marketing really differ from traditional marketing? How is social media changing things really? And what's going on in Asia?
Pyramid Structure
Having the pyramid structure in your communication toolkit can not only help you approach a problem, but convince others that your solution is valid. Break away from linear thinking and test your logical thinking with this course from GLOBIS Unlimited!
Leadership with Passion through Kokorozashi
The key ingredient to success? Passion.
Finding your kokorozashi will unify your passions and skills to create positive change in society. This GLOBIS Unlimited course will help you develop the values and lifelong goals you need to become a strong, passion-driven leader.
AI First Companies – Implementation and Impact
AI is changing the way companies operate. How do you structure teams to increase efficiency?
Technovate in the Era of Industry 4.0
Is Industry 4.0 is the next step of human evolution human civilization? Dr. Jorge Calvo seems to think so. Join him to learn how the past can help you set goals for an exciting future of digital innovation.
Technovate Thinking
Business leaders of tomorrow need to harness the power of technology and innovation. That means understanding algorithms and how they drive business results. Discover opportunities to make technology work for your competitive edge.
Product Life Cycle
Every product takes a natural course through the market—there's a how, when, and why customers adopt products at different stages. Check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited to find out how a product you use every day is part of this cycle.
Logic Tree
Logical thinking is the most valuable asset any business professional can have. That's why logic trees are such a valuable tool—they can help you identify a problem, break it down, and build it back up to a solution.
MECE Principle
Using the MECE principle can help ensure you categorize without gaps or overlaps. Check out this course from GLOBIS Unlimited for a practical demonstration of how it works!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a guy receives a single strawberry wrapped in five pieces of plastic . . . and decides to create an app so people can refill their water bottles for free.
True story! (Though a bit more did happen in between.)
Robin Lewis is cofounder and representative director of Social Innovation Japan, and cofounder of mymizu, a social enterprise and platform aiming to reduce plastic waste (specifically, plastic bottles). He’s also a TED speaker who believes in the power people have to influence each other—a key element for social impact businesses.
Like many business leaders tackling social issues, mymizu is proving that crises like plastic pollution can lead to opportunities—and new models for a different kind of legacy. Here are three key lessons from Lewis on building not just a business, but a movement for social change.
1. Understand underlying factors.
The plastic problem landed in Lewis’s lap as a strawberry—a single strawberry wrapped in five separate pieces of plastic. This, and a visit to a beach littered with plastic waste, spawned the idea for mymizu.
One of the most exciting stages of any business is that first burst of inspiration. You see the need, think of a solution, and want to hurry up and get things started. But Lewis cautions that it’s crucial to fully understand the problem you want to solve before rushing to a solution—especially in the case of social entrepreneurship.
“Unless you understand underlying factors,” he says, “it’s really hard to make an impact. For example, we talk about how plastic waste is 85% recycled, but if you look a bit deeper, that’s not the case at all.” Much of the plastic said to be recycled is burned instead. Or sold, then burned. Or piled up in landfills. Or tossed into the environment.
There was the global problem, and then there was the domestic side. According to a 2018 UN Environment report on single-use plastics and sustainability, Japan is second (after the US and just slightly ahead of the EU) for largest per capita plastic waste. Some of this could be explained by a culture that traditionally values wrapping and convenience, but there were also little mysteries. One thing, in particular, caught Lewis’s attention: “In Japan, when you’re in kindergarten or elementary school, you carry around a bottle. But in middle school, you don’t see that anymore. There’s a lot of data showing that people have reusable bottles, but they don’t carry them around. So we did a lot of research into that.”
All of this research defined how mymizu would provide value.
Built on community and branded as a mission, the mymizu app enables users to refill water bottles for free at designated locations, make suggestions for new refill spots, and (most importantly) track impact. That impact is measured in plastic bottles, CO2, and costs saved. So far, the collective impact of 200,000 global refill spots equates to over 85,000 plastic bottles, 9 million yen ($87,000 USD), and 28,000 kg of CO2 saved in less than two years.
Know the problem inside and out, and you can create a business solution with both impact and value.
2. Implement sooner rather than later.
Educating yourself about the problem your business will solve is one thing. Making a business plan is another. When it comes to the latter, over-planning is a pitfall for many startups. “Some people spend months or years of their lives planning,” says Lewis. “It’s better to make a plan, keep it short, and then just start implementing. See what happens. Focus on the action.”
Once mymizu had the problem down, the team shifted focus to existing models, solutions, consumer behavior, and attitudes. It wasn’t an easy fit. Like many social enterprises, mymizu was trying something unusual. In this case, it was asking businesses to give away water for free—including cafes and restaurants, which depend on people ordering drinks.
Initial reactions were skeptical, to say the least.
“I remember speaking to some cafe owners and other people, and they said, ‘This won’t work. You’ll go into cafes and restaurants and ask them to give away water? There’s no incentive.’ It was quite disheartening.” But rather than give up or spend more time planning to fit a traditional model, Lewis went with a try-and-see approach. “And yes,” he admits. “We did have to adapt a number of times. We’re still adapting now.”
But overall it’s working, thanks to the social aspect of mymizu.
Though the app was designed to help reduce plastic by pinpointing refill spots (whether public water fountains, private shops, or natural springs), users have found other applications. Many see private refill spots as businesses they want to support, so they spread the word. Unexpectedly, mymizu is often used as a Yelp-like rating service—with a bonus social impact buzz.
“We’ve heard this feedback from a lot of our refill partners,” says Lewis. “People come in to get water, and then they buy a donut, or they buy a coffee, or they come back the next week with a friend.”
Diving into action, rather than plotting out a meticulous business plan, can allow your business to maintain agility and grow in unexpected ways.
3. Tell a story.
“No one needs another app,” says Lewis. “They need a compelling, authentic story that they can be a part of, especially in the COVID-19 era. Get people involved. That’s always going to be what makes big things happen.”
Engaging users through a sense of story has brought mymizu the incredible benefit of having users do most of the legwork. The team does virtually no sales. New refill spots are recommended by users and confirmed through crowdsourcing (with a little help from AI). This has achieved over 750 refill locations with new businesses signing up daily, thanks to word of mouth.
“The people who use mymizu are kind of our evangelists,” says Lewis. “They’re the ones who make first contact.” To keep them engaged, mymizu offers more than a product—it offers a community for change. That includes beach cleans, online events, collaborations with schools, and other activities that bring in exactly zero revenue.
But no revenue doesn’t mean no value.
And to get people, you need that compelling, authentic story.
Success Measured in Social Impact
If your social enterprise is assembled correctly—if you understand the problem, aren’t afraid to fail fast, and get your story in place—it will lead to impact.
In one project, mymizu worked with one of Japan’s leading home furnishing companies to set up a corporate challenge for 2,600 employees. Teams competed in the challenge to see how many plastic bottles they could save using the app. “It was a challenge for us, too,” says Lewis. “We had to build new software and stuff to accommodate them. But it was a very proud moment for us.”
In 2021, mymizu plans to work with a city government to encourage a population of 1.5 million citizens to reduce plastic waste, as well as launch collaborations with leading brands from a wide range of industries.
The endgame isn’t big bucks, but real change.
“At the end of the day, we’re not trying to IPO,” says Lewis. “That’s not the goal. The goal is to create systemic change, and that comes through person-to-person interaction. If I ever stopped doing beach cleans and talking to people, I might as well do something else.”
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